Prompted in part by a city ordinance, Mike Roylos has invented the "Sidewalk Buttler", an ashtray for the times that's becoming a fixture around town.

Christmas Day in the Cranberry Isles arrived with winds high enough to cause ferry cancelations, though the air temperature was unseasonably mild. Fortunately for us, our family had arrived two days earlier.

Helping people tighten up their island homes against the sometimes brutal Maine winters, exacerbated by winds off Casco Bay, is an easy sell, especially as the realization settles in that cheap fuel is a thing of the past.